Hungarian Studies
Volume/Issue:
Accepted Manuscript / Online First
A transcultural reading of Banská Štiavnica/Selmecbánya novels
Author:
Anikó N. Tóth Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Nitra, Slovakia

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https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1780-7241
Online Publication Date:
02 Apr 2025
Publication Date:
02 Apr 2025
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/044.2024.00272
Keywords:
transculturality; novel; translocality; identity; anthroponym; multilingualism; hybridity; heterotopia; chronotopos; mobility
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Abstract

For centuries, Banská Štiavnica (Schemnitz, Selmecbánya) – like the mining towns of Lower Hungary – was a multicultural (predominantly German, Slovak and Hungarian) settlement, economic and commercial centre. The different cultures did not live in isolation, but crossed each other, creating ever-changing relationships, which can be explained by the constant exchange of inhabitants. The paper will examine how Slovak and Hungarian literary texts closely linked to the city reflect the mixing and interaction of cultures. Using transcultural perspectives and the conceptual framework of transcultural literary studies, it analyses not only contemporary but also 20th-century novels that pay particular attention to issues of identity, multilingualism and cultural permeation.

Part of the paper is focused on the local and cultural identity of the selected authors, because Banská Štiavnica as a specific place of the meeting of cultures is a defining chronotope, the birthplace or temporary home of many important novelists, poets and literary scholars, and the experiences associated with the town can often be found in their works. The lecture further focuses on anthroponyms in the novels under study, as it suggests that the hybridity of identity is also reflected in the protagonists' choice of names. By analyzing the novel's spaces, it characterizes forms of translocality. Travel is a defining and recurrent motif in the selected novels, so the lecture also addresses the issue of mobility: how displacement in space enables personality to keep moving, how identity is formed by the juxtaposition of the self and the stranger at the intersection of different cultures.

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Cover Hungarian Studies
Hungarian Studies A Journal of the International Association for Hungarian Studies and Balassi Institute
Print ISSN:
0236-6568
Online ISSN:
1588-2772

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Editor-in-Chief: Andrea Seidler

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  • Bíró, Annamária
  • Khavanova, Olga
  • de Montety, Henri
  • Áron Orbán

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Hungarian Studies
Language English
French
German
Size B5
Year of
Foundation		 1985
Volumes
per Year		 1
Issues
per Year		 2
Founder Nemzetközi Magyarságtudományi Társaság -- International Association for Hungarian Studies
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Address		 H-1097 Budapest, Tóth Kálmán u. 4. B.8.41.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
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ISSN 0236-6568 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2772 (Online)

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